While it's my job to be critical, regularly second-guessing everything the Miami Dolphins do, there's one line I usually don't cross.

I'll second guess strategy, analyze schemes, and pick apart personnel moves (cutting Matt Roth still doesn't make sense, no matter what the Trifecta says, or doesn't say. Roth's seven tackles and one sack in his first game for the Browns makes me call B.S. on that one). But I have a hard time, extremely hard time, criticizing play-calling.

Why? Because it's easy to play Monday Morning Quarterback AFTER you know the results.

Often times the same play call that gets labeled as dumb (for instance, Ricky Williams' throw into the end zone that turned into an interception on the first drive of the Bills game) would be called genius if it had worked.

What people don't know is that coaches prep for every possible situation during the week. They script every kind of play for every kind of situation. That custom made game-plan, based on hours and hours worth of film breakdown, and practices, gives them a better idea of what might work if executed properly. Sometimes you'll see a play they've worked on for two months and think they just put it in this week, but that's not the case.

These calls are usually well thought out, regularly practiced, and often designed to attack an opponents weakness, a certain coverage, or created to set something else up later in the game.

That's why it's hard for me to come down on Tony Sparano and offensive coordinator Dan Henningfor some of the plays they've called against the Bills, or some of the schemes they lean heavily on, like the Wildcat and the Pat Package (that's what Sparano's calling it these days).

BUT, if you ask me if I'm on board with the theory that the Dolphins coaches have dropped the ball at times this season by getting too cute….I'm gonna have to plea the fifth Amendment, or as Dave Chappelle puts it, The FIF.

As much of a fan as I am of Henning, who called BRILLIANT games last season, zigging when defenses think he was going to zag, I have to wonder if the Dolphins are leaning too heavily on trickery and gimmicks.

I know the offensive weaponry is limited, but why does every scoring drive need to take 15 plays. Where are the chunk yards?

Why has just about every opponent (except Carolina) out coached the Dolphins in the second half this season.

Why have the Dolphins been dominated by just about every opponent in the fourth-quarter?

Since when does a head coach in the NFL not know that a chance of possession creates a timeout?

Why do so many calls Sparano's made – the timeout against the Saints right before the half that led to the field goal, the two-point attempt against the Jets that made it a nail-biter, not kicking a field goal against Carolina, which made it a nail-biter, the timeout attempt against Buffalo – leave us scratching our heads?

Exactly how did this this seemingly amazing staff, which coached circles around opponents last year to get to 11-5, which had two assistants (assistant head coach Todd Bowles and defensive coordinator Paul Pasqualoni) viewed as hot head coach prospects, all of a sudden become ordinary?

“The amount of time coaches script plays, situations etc is irrelevant.”
If the number of deep plays is irrelevant you can’t have any preference on the run pass mix either. You can’t have it both ways. It’s never one thing or the other. It’s the play calling AND the execution.

The only coach that might be dropping the ball is the wide receiver coach.
I haven’t read in any article or blog what Worrell is up to. Are the receivers that bad that he’s getting a “pass” and not taking any blame?
If the Fins have paid for outside help to take a look at the receivers catching problems, they haven’t gotten their money’s worth.

And ALWAYS keep in mind GEL-TIME. To blow something up before it’s allowed to flourish would be like stepping on a caterpillar before it comes out of it’s cocoon. That analogy is queezy at best, but ‘yall get the point. We CAN’T keep changing coaches on a whim, it’s about COHESION. Let the last 5 games be the judge…

marinofan13, it’s not a debacle. We are what we are. A team on the rise but not there yet. This isn’t anything out of the ordinary or unprecedented. It’s the normal progression when you turn over a roster by 75% in two years while rolling with a lot of young players and a 2nd year QB starting for the first time.

I watched the Steeler / Raven game. Hard hitting, mean players. That is not the Dolphins. They need to play mean and put fear into people. The Ravens are no better than the Dolphins but I bet teams would rather not play the Ravens. I agree with earlier post. Get a freaking identity

Hey Jahndoh,
Good to have you back. Now here’s one for you. The Browns have the 3rd best record for NFL championships with 8, but where did the 9th come from?.I’ve never been able to figure that out.http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/teams/page/CLE/cleveland-browns
throwing to him in the football wasteland known as the Cleveland Browns, so there’s still some merit to your observation!
Posted by: Jahndoh | December 02, 2009 at 01:16 PM

Hey Jahndoh,
Good to have you back. Now here’s one for you. The Browns have the 3rd best record for NFL championships with 8, but where did the 9th come from?.I’ve never been able to figure that out.
How could you figure that out, it doesn’t make any sense.

I knew you losers would start finger pointing at players coaches etc.
It’s your nature. Most of you losers have never played a down of football and knee jerk reactions to what you see & hear. The writer is throwing a bone out there leaning toward speculative coaching and some yoos hop on it.
You gave the players & coaches too much credit for an 11-5 season which an easy schedule an a wildcat package threw some teams of and the excellent play of Pennington.
In actuallity the team is and was mediocre at best and personell wise was an 8-8 team posing as 11-5 team. With tough scedule,some bad personel moves and the 25th selection what the hell do you expect? There’s no freekin Talent, get it? NO TALENT! The team Blowsszz!
Bringing in castoffs from lowly teams like the rada’s and perinneal loser detroit, tells you thier not looking to win a championship! 11-5 actually set back the rebuilding procces a year.
As for the coaches,God bless em, are trying to…as tony wise said make chicken salad out of chicken shiit. I predicted this in the beggining of the year. 5-11 and 0-5 the rest of the way,Why? every team they’re facing is better and has more talent.
It’s possible they may win one after all two lucky 100yd returns beat the Jets, a bad call beat tampa.
But the coaching has been exceptional for the utter Gaa-bage they have to work with. I give em A- Sparano, has made a couple of goofy mistakes,SO WHAT!~
This is all Magnified because YOU lost,ok? If you beat Buffalo (which i predicted would win big) then none of this would surface.
If i were yoos, I would be more concerned about your management who seems to look in rice patties for free agents, they’re drafting is very suspect and deciscion making on what players to let go,Roth,Hill,goodman and replace em with, green,wilson and wake.
Not to mention Mcdaniel for wiley vet Holiday.
New orleans picked up two corners off the street, and they both played great,where’s the awfulins?
Parcells should’ve hire Pioli not Ireland.
Burp!

It’s better than ebonics isn’t it?
I’m more concerned about expressing a thought than proper structuring of paragraphs.
Some people need a road map to find thier way out of the desert, others use inert qualities and intelligence.
If it messes your mind up to read it, don’t read it.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! Now for another ice cold BUD!

Not sure if you were taking exception to my browns comment knight, but I can qualify it:
I meant to say the CURRENT cleveland browns were an NFL wasteland. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the cities undying loyalty to the franchise prior to Modells sacriledge. The NFL should never have let an owner hijack such a dedicated fanbase like that, ’cause the expansion franchise they got as consolation has been nothing but heartbreak.
Minus the political aspects of Modell vs. Cleveland, I also have great respect for Lions fans because after our 1-15 season you start to realize that those fans come back hell or highwater every year to root for their team no matter what the outlook.
90% of the dolphin fanbase would’ve bailed on the team if we were perennially as bad as those franchises.

“Since when does a head coach in the NFL not know that a chance of possession creates a timeout?”
Since when do writers not see that chance should be change?
Writers are getting worse and editors have become non-existent.

Our best defensive player is Cameron Wake, And we dont play him.
He’s a liability in run & pass defense and apparently hasn’t played special teams well.
The best defensive player has been Nate jones (nickel back) has made a key play in several games.
Your two inside backers are running out of gas in the fourth because of no adequate replacements, You have all these OLB’s and no inside guys coupled with bad safeties. They picked up another corner because of little rotation there. I guess they weren’t interested in Mike Mckenzie.

I criticize Cameron Wake for his 17 tackles, 4.5 sacks, and 1 forced fumble with only limited playing time, but if you want to see a really crappy OLB then please look at my boy Vernon Gholston who has picked up zero sacks, zero FF, and only 11 tackles. I know Gholston sucks and he is a first round bust even worse than your Ted Ginn Jr is, but I just can’t help being a Butt Pirate over that guy.

Some of the playcalling is too cute. I don’t think that is just hindsight talking.
But I agree with many of the posters here that we are still building. Think about how much Wanny, Cameron and Saban hurt this franchise before Sparano, Parcells and Co.
At the end of the day, as much as I question some of the playcalling, I am willing to be patient. Fins are still recovering from life (or lack of) before Parcells. It will take time. We were in bad shape.
That said, I hope they are a little more agressive this offseason and go after a playmakers like Brandon Marshall and a reliable NT like Vince Wilfork. Is that too much to ask in exchange for my continued patience.

WR output is definitely on the coaches…. they need to call plays that utilize the talents of the players… isolation is the key… and the coaches are the ones that set that up…
also defensive breakdowns in the second half ALL season seems to be coaching ineptness as well…

marinofan,
sorry, i had to get back to work and didn’t see your question/post.
Actually, I don’t have a lot of problems with the way the Trifecta is building the team. It’s the way I’d do it.
But, I just get a little tired of everyone giving Parcells the benefit of every doubt when he has made many mistakes in years past and has made quite a few since he’s gotten here too.
He is not this infallible football god that some want to make him out to be.
Getting rid of Roth, for example, was a horrible decision, and if it was made just b/c the kid was hurt and couldn’t play when they wanted him to play I see that as someone’s ego getting in the way of what’s best for the team.
It’s stuff like that that makes me question their moves, but overall I’m just holding on and enjoying the ride.

Somebody has to answer for all those points in the fourth quarter. I don’t know if it’s the play-calling or a lack of effort but we look like an 0-11 team those last 15 minutes.
Henning’s also made some pretty questionable decisions. Most notably favoring the pass over the run when we were up on New Orleans. Didn’t make sense at all. And the Ricky Williams pass call still would have been terrible even if it worked. On first-and-goal from the 3? Against the Bills? Really?

I know one thing.. Roth says he was extremely happy to get out of Miami. I remember Eric Green saying the same thing. I didn’t care about losing Green, just saying..
How does that reflect on the coaching staff?

I like Sparano and the other coaches in Miami, but the one thing that I fault them for is being soft and keeping Ginn Jr. around when he consistently loses games for the Dolphins. Ten times this year Ginn has dropped or just not caught balls that could have led to Miami winning the game. This guy is not Pro Bowl material afterall. Parcells should just trade him like they did that kid who had one good preseason game and fumbled the next week. Once a chump always a chump. Ginn won’t get any better since he hasn’t done that up until now. I’d feel better about Sean Smith going long than I do about Ginn Jr. I wish him Godspeed but somewhere else besides Miami. Let’s get a draft choice for Ginn and be rid of him for good.

“I PROMISE YOU the saints and the colts have dominos, cards and probably a couple other games in their lockerooms too.”
I guess because you say so it should be true right? What are you, the commissioner of the Professional Old Man Table Games League….

Yes Omar, the coaches are dropping the ball. As much as we can point to the poor performance of the players we can blame coaching. Many of us, even those in support of the staff, can’t deny that mistakes in playcalling and second half adjustments have been made.
My question is will they learn from these mistakes? Dan Henning leans much too heavily on trick plays to move the chains. We all knew the wildcat would be part of the offense but not this much. I truly hope changes will be made in personnel and play calling, to focus on player strengths in the future.

Discussing coaching is certainly legitimate, but, I gotta say, I’m more than a little saddened to see the sophomoric and inane name-calling by so-called “fans.”
Serious: “Pass-Q-Baloney”? “Pasquablowme”?
I know this is just a sports blog, but…are we really a bunch of nine year olds? I’m not sure what’s worse, that people who call themselves fans would stoop to such a lame level of humor (intentionally mispronouncing someone’s name, which is just about a half a step up from whoopee cushions and joy buzzers)…but such horribly idiotic names to boot.
Seriously, as much as this topic deserves consideration by fans…I stopped reading after the above two “names.” I was so much more ashamed by the Jets-like insipidness my fellow “fans” than I am by the questionable coaching that I don’t even care what their (your) opinions are anymore.

Omar,
You are wrong on this one…
“Often times the same play call that gets labeled as dumb (for instance, Ricky Williams’ throw into the end zone that turned into an interception on the first drive of the Bills game) would be called genius if it had worked.”
If that play works, as a fan, I’m happy and jumping up and down and spilling my beer. However, even if that play works, in my opinion, it’s still an idiot call and we got lucky. Horrible, idiotic, stupid, call. Risk/Reward factor says you don’t go all in on a $5 pot with pocket deuces and that’s what we did.
Our coaches have failed to make the correct decisions in the game, especially “not” kicking a 40 something yard field goal against carolina which would have made it a 2 possession game at the end, but instead we almost had “another” 4th qtr. collapse. I am so PISSED and I feel cheated……

OMAR KELLY was unsuccessful at achieving his childhood dream to become a super hero, so he figured he'd do the next best thing and become a journalist who fights against injustice, and searches for truth. After being bored to death reporting news and covering politics, he switched to sports.
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IZZY GOULD joined the Sun Sentinel in Feb. 2012 as a Senior Sports Reporter on the Miami Dolphins beat. He came to South Florida fresh off covering the University of Alabama football program, including its 2011 national championship team. More